Newsletter
Spring 1998

Welcome to our second Ladies of Lallybroch newsletter. Sorry it's taken so long to get it uploaded, but we encountered a few snags along the way!

First of all, I would like to welcome all our new ladies who have joined us in the last few months. From The Original Seven we have grown like a bad weed *g* and our mailing list now tops 50!!! So, we are growing, and we are spreading the word about Diana Gabaldon and her books!

Now, since we have so many new ladies, I thought I might just give a little history about the Ladies of Lallybroch and how we came about.

When I first found romance bulletin boards over a year ago, I was very excited about telling everyone about Diana's books. Imagine my surprise when I met some downright NASTY comments and negativity. I found it hard to take and hard to believe!

At that point I decided to gather together a core group of fellow DG lovers, so I approached several online friends, as well as a few friends who were offline but had read Outlander, and I didn't tell them what I was up to, all I said was that I was looking for ladies who were willing to pledge an oath of undying love to one James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser. I figured, if they were willing to pledge unquestioningly to that, they were my type of people!

Yeah, okay, so I'm pathetic! Apparently, I'm not the only one! *g*

The Original Seven gave their pledges - Judie, Lorri, Val, Kim, Stephanie, Tamara, and Laurie - and the Ladies of Lallybroch was formed! (Thanks to Lorri for the great name!)

My great plan was to have this huge web site all about Jamie and Claire and the books and so on, but I couldn't figure out how to upload anything to my web site! Great, eh? *g* So, there were the seven of us, talking to ourselves if we were lucky! Actually, it was more like Val and I were talking to ourselves because right about then Tamara lost her internet access, Stephanie moved, Kim moved, Laurie was off writing books *g*, Lorri was chasing kids - and then even Val had to chase her kids, so ..... since I'm so old and have no life, I was there pretty much talking to myself! :-)

Fortunately, right about that time, Val found the free message boards at Inside The Web, so I managed to at least get SOMETHING started. Went over to the Amazon Books site, rounded up all the people I could find there who gave DG's books a 10 rating, and sent them all a message inviting them to come and visit our message board, a bit of word of mouth followed, and the word started to spread.

I would also like to mention our one official "Laddie" - Scotty Walker. I met him through the Scotsman's online newspaper forum, and we have become very good friends. I told him about Outlander and the dear went out and bought it and he's been with us ever since! Of course, he rather fancies Claire! *g* And he likes to complain to me that he feels the ladies "gang up" on him, but I know he really loves being our "Laddie". And, hopefully one day we'll have a few more laddies to keep him company, so any of you Ladies who have boyfriends or husbands who have been shy about making themselves heard, tell them to come out from the shadows and give Scotty some support! :-)

Anyway, BC Maxy from Clan Outlandish at AOL found us and wrote a nice message on the LOL board, and I got in touch with her and she has mentioned our name on their mailing list several times, and I would like to thank her for that. We now have some Clan Outlandish members who have also joined the Ladies of Lallybroch! I just wish I had access to AOL so I could join in there as well.

We now have a great group of Ladies and Laddie, and I am proud to be a part of it all. Thanks to all of you for joining us.

Over and above our 50+ on the mailing list, there are many people who tend to lurk, and I would like to encourage them to jump in, don't be afraid. We won't bite! :-)

I hope you enjoy this newsletter. It mainly focuses on the survey questions the ladies filled out, and the two topics we had up for discussion. So I would like to suggest that anyone who has an idea for something for the next newsletter - poems, anecdotes about incidents to do with the books, topic suggestions, WHATEVER - please feel free to talk to me about it. We'd like the newsletters to be fun and exciting and you're all invited to participate. And hopefully it won't be so long between newsletters next time.

I would like to say a special hello to Lady Tamara - and would you please get your butt in gear and get hooked back up with us!!!! *g* Hello also to Ladie Laurie - hope the writing is coming along and all the best with it. Hope you'll be able to drop in and say hi one of these days. Same with Ladies Kim, Lorri and Stephanie - hope things simmer down a bit so you'll have time to get back on the internet on a regular basis. And many thanks for Lady Val for being our web surfer and researcher and for getting the newsletter organized, designed and uploaded!

Thank you all for being part of the Ladies of Lallybroch. Let's go out there and spread the word! Diana Gabaldon Rules!!! :-)

 

Judie

 

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Valerie Kettner